FirstSpirit "External Synchronization"
Support for the distributed development of FirstSpirit projects
FirstSpirit projects are generally developed in a team. For distributed project development involving several team members, each team member works in their own local FirstSpirit development environment. The development processes operate at several workplaces (decentrally), at different times (asynchronously), and often at different development strands (nonlinearly). To support these projects successfully, adequate tools (such as version control systems, integrated development environments, etc.) need to be used.
FirstSpirit External Synchronization supports these concepts by providing FirstSpirit objects in a format which allows developers:
- to export templates (and other project content) from a FirstSpirit project into a file system structure with a folder hierarchy and
- to import modified content from the file system structure back into a FirstSpirit project.
This export/import functionality makes it possible to:
- edit FirstSpirit objects externally (e.g., via an IDE).
- version FirstSpirit objects via an external version control system (therefore forming the basis for successful distributed development).
The following interfaces are entry points for External Synchronization:
(Package: de.espirit.firstspirit.store.access.nexport.operations)
The command line tool “FSDevTools” encapsulates the existing API and can be used via the command line or an IDE.
We recommend performing all export and import actions using “FSDevTools”. This tool uses pre-defined commands to automatically import and export data between the FirstSpirit project and the file system. The interfaces therefore do not have to be implemented individually.
Source code and documentation for the compilation, use, and functional expansion of the “FSDevTools” command line tool are published and available to download at:
Documentation: External Synchronization
Technical requirements, configuration and concrete examples are described in the documentation “FirstSpirit External Synchronization”. The HTML documentation for “FirstSpirit External Synchronization” can be reached via the following link:
Introduction (→Documentation “External Synchronization”) (HTML version)
or alternatively from the left navigation sidebar (entry “Documentation External Synchronization”).